Posts Tagged ‘john’

This week the US passed an emergency bill to avert the looming threat of sequestration. Tucked away in the 500+ page bill were several last-minute additions, one which dealt a pre-emptive strike against anti-gun legislation, the other – dubbed the Monsanto bill – worked to limit restrictions on GMOs. These secretive laws were penned anonymously from behind closed doors unbeknownst to most of the senators who signed the bill into law.

A handful of politicians/corporate shills sneaking through undesirable laws, hidden by the fog of an urgent bill which was only made into an emergency by the institutionalized ineptitude known as the US political system.

Here in Canada, we face a similar tact by the conservative party. They take all their new laws and roll them up into a giant turd called an omnibus bill. By slow-feeding the media key talking points and ensuring all their party is on board, they get this growing ball rolling, gaining momentum up to the point when the deadline nears. Then, even though people will point out the many pieces of crap legislation being passed through without due discussion, the whole thing is moving with such inertia that no one is able to stop it lest they be covered in shit.

It’s ridiculous. This isn’t democracy. At least not as good as democracy can get. In the age of the Internet and social media, governance could be so much more than it is today. We could have way more transparency. Way more accountability.

The sad part is, every time government makes some baloney move that chips away at our individual freedoms and it goes by without an uproar from we the public, they gain power while we lose it.

America (along with sidekick Britain) are imperialist forces hellbent on global domination, President Obama is the lead man in a military coup which took place in Washington, and despite a supposedly free press, most of these atrocities remain hidden from the Western world. And, according to noted journalist John Pilger, all of this has been happening for over 50 years now.

In total, the United States has carried out one or more of these actions in 69 countries. In almost all cases, Britain has been a collaborator. The “enemy” changes in name – from communism to Islamism — but mostly it is the rise of democracy independent of western power or a society occupying strategically useful territory, deemed expendable.

The sheer scale of suffering, let alone criminality, is little known in the west, despite the presence of the world’s most advanced communications, nominally freest journalism and most admired academy.

While past presidents presided over imperialist agendas in foreign nations, Barack Obama is the first to truly bring this war on democracy back home to the American people. Pilger:

A military coup was taking place in Washington, and Obama was their man. Having seduced the anti-war movement into virtual silence, he has given America’s corrupt military officer class unprecedented powers of state and engagement.

Obama’s most “historic” achievement is to bring the war on democracy home to America. On New Year’s Eve, he signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a law that grants the Pentagon the legal right to kidnap both foreigners and US citizens and indefinitely detain, interrogate and torture, or even kill them. They need only “associate” with those “belligerent” to the United States. There will be no protection of law, no trial, no legal representation. This is the first explicit legislation to abolish habeus corpus (the right to due process of law) and effectively repeal the Bill of Rights of 1789.

On 5 January, in an extraordinary speech at the Pentagon, Obama said the military would not only be ready to “secure territory and populations” overseas but to fight in the “homeland” and provide “support to the civil authorities”. In other words, US troops will be deployed on the streets of American cities when the inevitable civil unrest takes hold.

The entire article is certainly worth a read, if only to expand one’s own horizons beyond the typical narrative laid out to those of us the Western world. You know what they say – Knowledge is Power!

I have chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived, yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.

I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children. Not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women. Not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade, therefore they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants.

World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor. It requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance. So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable.

No matter when you read this, the following statement will always be true: We’ve never been closer to making world peace a reality than we are right now. This statement will always be true because with every new moment, our world gets a little bit better, and each step we take forward brings us one step closer to world peace.

Our world has been consistently improving for centuries, and will continue to get even better at accelerating speeds. This isn’t some dream… it is firmly rooted in reality. One source that confirms this is Indur Goklany, whose book The Improving State of the World brings credible research and reliable facts to support his thesis, which is that our world is getting better and better.

Here are a few of his key findings:

Global Poverty has been on the decline for centuries

We are living longer, healthier lives than ever before

We are better educated than our parents generation, and our children will be better educated than us

Pollution is down in developed nations

Pollution will drop in developing nations as they learn from what developed nations have already done

Food supplies have increased almost 25 percent per capita in the past 50 years

Goklany credits the continued improvements to mutually reinforcing, co-evolving forces he calls the cycle of progress. This same phenomenon is something we’ve been referring to as The Snowball Effect, and it shows us how each step towards a better world makes it easier to take the next step, meaning we are approaching a better world at an accelerating pace.

One of the best notions of world improvement is how the impacts are felt most dramatically by those at the bottom. Tiny improvements that would barely impact those of us in developed nations can have huge ramifications for those who live in extreme poverty. A small improvement to one’s standard of living can mean the difference between life or death. Just one step up can provide an opportunity to climb out of the trap of extreme poverty. (like with John and his MoneyMakerPlus)

This really brings home the fact that every one of us truly has the power to make the world a better place… and our world will only get better as more people become aware of this.

As our world improves, it will decrease the levels of suffering. As suffering drops, so too will tension. With less tension, we will have less violence, less war, and ultimately, more peace. As well, we come to see that our world really isn’t doomed, it will be easier for more of us to find peace within ourselves. A world full of humans embracing inner peace will be one more ingredient contributing to world peace.

Our world is getting better with every new day. Soon, a revolution of optimism will take hold of our planet as we come to recognize how we are truly on the brink of achieving world peace.